Driftwood Beach is one of my favorite places in all of Coastal Georgia; located on the north end of Jekyll Island, it is a textbook example of the effects of erosion on a barrier island. It’s understandably one of the most photographed places in Georgia. The “boneyard” is the section of Driftwood Beach littered with ancient pines and live oaks preserved by salt air and bleached by the sun. It’s estimated that nearly 1,000 feet of Jekyll’s beaches have been lost to erosion since 1900.

A greater danger to the beaches and marshlands of Jekyll Island today is the commercially-motivated Jekyll Island Authority, which is already blatantly disregarding ecological principle and law in their attempt to make Jekyll more “tourist friendly”. They are part of a much larger trend in the Georgia government to look the other way where the environment is concerned. Former Altamaha Riverkeeper James Holland recently made documentary photographs of the JIA’s irresponsible clear-cutting in the marsh buffer zone along the causeway.As someone who has spent a lifetime visiting here, I agree that many improvements are needed, but if development and protection of resources can’t be balanced, what will be the point?